Hello,
I'm new here, so please forgive me if this has been asked before, I did a search but found no references to Viva. A little background: we have a 20x40 L-shaped pool with vinyl liner; being in Western Mass and surrounded by pine trees, we do get a fair amount of pine needles, cones and other debris in. Also, sometimes we don't get to open a pool EVERY year for various reasons, and spring cleanups tend to get pretty heavy. I have a suction-side Hayward Navigator that is nowhere near capable to handle such task, and as a result every late spring/early summer cleanups become a nightmare of a manual vacuum, constant backwashing and skimming.
In order to make our lives easier, I bought Aquabot Classic at BJ's, mainly because of a no-risk return policy. It's been running for over a week and overall did a decent job at cleaning the pool, but it's nowhere near what I need it to be: it has very little power and after even a little cleanup, it's unable to climb the walls or even get out of the deep end of the pool. Also, cleaning out the nastiness from the bags is a huge pain, it also appears that bags get clogged up easily, a disposable bag would be a much better option.
After doing a fair amount of research, I narrowed it down to the following three cleaners:
- Dolphin Dynamic 5 Plus
- Water Tech Blue Diamond RC
- Aquatron Aquabot Viva
My goals is to buy the best, most reliable cleaner on the market, that can handle heavy initial clean-ups as well as lighter daily/weekly cleanings. I don't mind paying extra for a better warranty and some additional functionality that makes a difference in everyday life; I consider it a long-term investment. Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of reviews for either one of these, I compares specs, warranty and overall reputation and it appears that Viva is the best option in my case. Does anyone have first-hand experience with either one of these, or has any thoughts on the options, or any and all input or suggestions?
Thanks in advance, this forum seems to be the best source of information on the Web for everything pool-related, I'm VERY happy I came across it!
Dimitri
I'm new here, so please forgive me if this has been asked before, I did a search but found no references to Viva. A little background: we have a 20x40 L-shaped pool with vinyl liner; being in Western Mass and surrounded by pine trees, we do get a fair amount of pine needles, cones and other debris in. Also, sometimes we don't get to open a pool EVERY year for various reasons, and spring cleanups tend to get pretty heavy. I have a suction-side Hayward Navigator that is nowhere near capable to handle such task, and as a result every late spring/early summer cleanups become a nightmare of a manual vacuum, constant backwashing and skimming.
In order to make our lives easier, I bought Aquabot Classic at BJ's, mainly because of a no-risk return policy. It's been running for over a week and overall did a decent job at cleaning the pool, but it's nowhere near what I need it to be: it has very little power and after even a little cleanup, it's unable to climb the walls or even get out of the deep end of the pool. Also, cleaning out the nastiness from the bags is a huge pain, it also appears that bags get clogged up easily, a disposable bag would be a much better option.
After doing a fair amount of research, I narrowed it down to the following three cleaners:
- Dolphin Dynamic 5 Plus
- Water Tech Blue Diamond RC
- Aquatron Aquabot Viva
My goals is to buy the best, most reliable cleaner on the market, that can handle heavy initial clean-ups as well as lighter daily/weekly cleanings. I don't mind paying extra for a better warranty and some additional functionality that makes a difference in everyday life; I consider it a long-term investment. Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of reviews for either one of these, I compares specs, warranty and overall reputation and it appears that Viva is the best option in my case. Does anyone have first-hand experience with either one of these, or has any thoughts on the options, or any and all input or suggestions?
Thanks in advance, this forum seems to be the best source of information on the Web for everything pool-related, I'm VERY happy I came across it!
Dimitri